Joël Drommel and Donny van de Beek will not be part of the final selection of the Dutch national team towards the coming international matches, Hans Kraay Jr. and Marciano Vink, among others, speculated on Tuesday evening at Voetbal Talk on ESPN. National coach Louis van Gaal has selected 25 players for the duels with Norway, Montenegro and Turkey and two of them will drop out. Kraay Jr. anticipates that Daley Blind may get a new role under Van Gaal.
Vink thinks that Remko Pasveer will also be part of the final selection. “If you get Pasveer in the pre-selection, I think you’ll take him with you. I don’t think you’re going to let him lose weight then. In my eyes, Drommel falls off. I expect Van Gaal Pasveer to have a international match will give or something like that. Why would you bring in Pasveer, who is actually the second goalkeeper at Ajax, next to Drommel, Justin Bijlow and Tim Krul? Krul is always there and may also go goalkeeping, Bijlow is very talented and deserves a chance and then you have Drommel who has just gone to a big club. That also applies to Pasveer, but his age is a bit of a stretch. I think Drommel will lose weight.”
Van Gaal: “I would also have come to myself if I were the KNVB”
Kraay Jr. thought it was remarkable that Pasveer was part of the pre-selection. “But it is not surprising that if you do take him with you, then you take him with you. I agree with the weight loss of Drommel.” He pointed out that Jasper Cillessen has never let the Dutch national team down and emphasized that the Valencia goalkeeper is not injured at all, as has been suggested here and there. Table companion Cristian Willaert pointed out that Cillessen had a minor injury and that images can be seen on the Valencia website showing the the Dutch international is training again. “There is a good chance that he will play next weekend. Then it’s weird that you don’t include him.”
Kraay Jr. hopes that Van Gaal will choose to include Tyrell Malacia and Guus Til in the final selection. “They will bring freshness. Although not in the base and I also know that Patrick van Aanholt and Owen Wijndal are not there, but I think that Malacia is currently the best left back in the Netherlands.” He does not see Daley Blind playing as a left back under Van Gaal. “I know that Van Gaal is charmed by Blind as a controlling left midfielder and then Frenkie de Jong next to it. Van Gaal sees everything, of course, and he has seen De Jong go deep on the right side at Barcelona in a new attacking system under Ronald Koeman. And then Georginio Wijnaldum on ‘ten’.”
“Then you have a football controller, Van Gaal is someone who loves real football. Not from clubbers.” Vink made the comment that Blind must be in top shape for such a role. “The moments that he was there this season, it was not quite great. And in the very last league match against NEC he was just left back. When he was in midfield, along with Ryan Gravenberch, it wasn’t good when he had to walk the spaces. He needs to get fitter. Of course he came back from the European Championships later and you just noticed in the matches that he couldn’t play those spaces well. That has to do with fitness.”
Vink continues to find Til’s pre-selection opportunistic, but understands Van Gaal when he is looking for fit players. “If there is a fit footballer, it is Til. Will he also play? There is no room for that.” Kraay Jr., Vink and Willaert assume that Van de Beek will be the other dropout. The midfielder stayed on the bench for 90 minutes in Manchester United’s 5-1 home win over Leeds United last Saturday, on the first day of the Premier League.
The Dutch national team will play against Norway on September 1 in Oslo. Three days later Montenegro comes to visit the Philips Stadium in Eindhoven and three days later a confrontation with Turkey awaits in the Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam. All matches start at 8.45pm. Only the group winner qualifies directly for the World Cup in Qatar. The numbers two from all ten groups, plus the two best group winners from the Nations League who did not finish in the first two in the qualifying series, compete in the play-offs for the three remaining tickets.